Human Rights Regression

Since the end of the Second World War, much of Western Civilization took it for granted that the progress and triumph of human rights, freedom, and liberal democracy would continue in perpetuity. Of course, there were setbacks as communist insurgencies and revolution snuffed out the lights of liberty in various places round the globe, but the hope of freedom always reappeared in places like Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Tiananmen Square, Poland, and most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And despite the success that liberal democracy has experienced since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the possibility of Western concepts of freedoms no longer progressing, but in fact, regressing, is now more of a possibility than perhaps since Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930’s. What we may be witnessing today is not progress but regress in terms of our rights and freedoms.

In Britain, councils have ruled that images of Piglet from “Winnie the Pooh” must not be displayed because it causes offence to Muslims. Most newspapers and magazines refused to publish the infamous “Danish Cartoons” of Mohammed despite them being a legitimate news story because of the riots they resulted in around the world. The editors that did were castigated and in the case of Canadian editor, Ezra Levant, hauled before a “Human Rights Tribunal” after a complaint was filed against him by an imam in Calgary, Alberta.

Indeed, the West has changed and is changing more and quickly. The West, as part of its openness and inclusiveness, has received millions of Muslim immigrants from all over the globe and it is now affecting our culture in ways we never dreamt. Mohammed is now the second most popular name for boys in London, England and will soon be number one.

Canadian author Mark Steyn has warned in his book, American Alone, that the West faces major civilizational threats from a combination of it’s declining birth rate and an influx of Muslim immigrants, many of whom do not share Western values, and some of whom are violently opposed to Western values. Like Mr. Levant, Steyn too has been summoned to appear before the British Columbia Human Rights Commission (HRC) to answer before the thought police for portions of his book that were published in Maclean’s magazine (Canada’s largest weekly news magazine).